The WAYBAC time machine: Venezuela "Golden Oldies"
Recently, Venezuela's state oil company announced that it would find it increasingly difficult to pay their debts to China and Russia with oil (for services already rendered) due to plummeting production and refining capability under Chavismo.
The following is how Venezuela and PdVSA presented itself to the US Senate, right after Chavez fired 18,000 highly skilled PdVSA engineers and technicians who went on strike for better wages and benefits, and replaced them with party loyalists.
Statement of the Embassy of Venezuela Before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Having made such a successful and complete turnaround in 2003, we are now ready to look to the future. PDVSA's 2004-2009 business plan is both ambitious and realistic. The plan calls for an increase in crude oil production capacity from the current 3.8 million barrels per day to more than 5 million barrels per day by 2009. While this increase will be achieved principally from substantial investments by PDVSA, there will also be sizable investments by foreign oil companies, including U.S. companies in Venezuela. Under the business plan, a total of $37 billion will be invested in the Venezuelan energy industry over the next five years. Foreign companies will account for 26 percent of this total. PDVSA’s plans provide tremendous business opportunities for U.S. companies. In addition, Venezuela has a legal framework in place that allows for foreign participation up to 49 percent in upstream activities, 100 percent in downstream activities, and 100 percent in natural gas projects.
http://www.embavenez-us.org/news.php?nid=51
Currently, Venezuela extracts less than 1.4 mbd... less than it did in 1949. Not a dime was "reinvested" in new exploration, maintenance or upgrades. Nearly all of it was used to line the pockets of Chavista insiders, including Chavez own daughter, Maria Gabriella (worth 4.2 billion dollars), with the remainder used to buy shoddily built apartments for Chavista voters, and subsidized food (Venezuelan farmers stopped producing, because the cost of production wasn't even close to what Chavez offered them for their produce).